The AP reportstates that Trump administration officials have been sending babies and other young children forcibly separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border to at least three “tender age” shelters in South Texas—with a fourth shelter set to open in Houston.

"Lawyers and medical providers who have visited the Rio Grande Valley shelters described playrooms of crying preschool-age children in crisis," the report reads.

“The thought that they are going to be putting such little kids in an institutional setting? I mean it is hard for me to even wrap my mind around it,” Kay Bellor, vice president for programs at Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, tells the AP. “Toddlers are being detained.”

Maddow struggled to read the breaking news, her voice trembling. "Trump administration officials have been sending babies and other young children," Maddow began before stopping to seemingly hold back tears. She asks for someone to put up a graphic for the story, but when one was not available she tried to continue.

Eventually she realizes she's not going to make it through. "I think I'm going to have to hand this off" before closing her show for the evening and sending MSNBC viewers to Lawrence O'Donnell, who was reporting live from Brownsville, Texas.

After the show, Maddow took to Twitter to apologize and finish what she was trying to say on TV. "Ugh, I'm sorry," she wrote. "If nothing else, it is my job to actually be able to speak while I'm on TV."